Prior to her departure, Faustina Setti visited Leonarda one last time. The fortuneteller provided Faustina with a glass of wine—a toast, perhaps, to brighter days ahead. The wine was drugged. Soon after the sedatives took hold, Leonarda bludgeoned Faustina with an axe.

After drugging Setti, Leonarda killed her with an axe and dragged her body into a closet. She proceeded to cut Setti’s body into 9 parts and collected her blood in a basin. In her memoir—An Embittered Soul’s Confessions—Leonarada details what occurred next:

I threw the pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda, which I had bought to make soap, and stirred the whole mixture until the pieces dissolved in a thick, dark mush that I poured into several buckets and emptied in a nearby septic tank. As for the blood in the basin, I waited until it had coagulated, dried it in the oven, ground it and mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk and eggs, as well as a bit of margarine, kneading all the ingredients together. I made lots of crunchy tea cakes and served them to the ladies who came to visit, though Giuseppe and I also ate them.

The second victim, Francesca Soavi, met a similar end. Leonarda cut Francesca's body into pieces. Similarly, she collected the blood and placed the chunks into a pot with caustic soda, used for making soap. Once the body dissolved into a mush, Leonarda poured the goo into a septic tank. She dried the blood in an oven, then mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk, eggs, and margarine, and made teacakes that she served to neighbors. According to her memoir, her neighbors also enjoyed the bloody pastries.

Related: Behind Closed Doors: The Secret Life of the Knorr Family

Leonarda’s final victim, Virginia Cacioppo, was a former soprano. She had flesh that was “fat and white” and, according to the killer, made a “most acceptable creamy soap” when boiled down. The murdered singer received the same culinary treatment as Leonarda’s previous victims; her remains were cooked into treats and distributed among neighbors. Leonarda noted that “the cakes, too, were better: that woman was really sweet.”

Leonarda Cianciulli: The Deadly Soap-Maker of Correggio

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